ive to
get, and how terribly difficult to bring home. Forty thousand pieces
were despatched to Mr. Sander in one consignment--he hugged himself with
delight when three thousand proved to have some trace of vitality.

Mr. Watson, Assistant Curator at Kew, recalls an amusing instance of the
value and the mystery attached to this species so late as 1867. In that
year Professor Reichenbach described it for the first time. He tells how
a friend lent him the bloom upon a negative promise under five
heads--"First, not to show it to any one else; (2) not to speak much
about it; (3) not to take a drawing of it; (4) not to have a photograph
made; (5) not to look oftener than three times at it." By-the-bye, Mr.
Watson gives the credit of the first discovery to the late Mr. Bowman;
but I venture to believe that my account is exact--in reference to the
Antioquia variety, at least.

The other form occurs in the famous district of Frontino, about two
hundred and fifty miles due north of the first habitat, and
shows--_savants_ would add "of course"--a striking difference. In the
geographical distinctions of species will be found the key to whole
volumes of mystery that perplex us now. I once saw three Odontoglossums
ranged side by side, which even an expert would pronounce mere varieties
of the same plant if he were not familiar with them--_Od. Williamsi_,
_Od. grande_, and _Od. Schlieperianum_. The middle one everybody knows,
by sight at least, a big, stark, spread-eagle flower, gamboge yellow
mottled with red-brown, vastly effective in the mass, but individually
vulgar. On one side was _Od. Williamsi_, essentially the same in flower
and bulb and growth, but smaller; opposite stood _Od. Schlieperianum_,
only to be distinguished as smaller still. But both these latter rank as
species. They are separated from the common type, _O. grande_, by nearly
ten degrees of latitude and ten degrees of longitude, nor--we might
almost make an affidavit--do any intermediate forms exist in the space
between; and those degrees are sub-tropical, by so much more significant
than an equal distance in our zone. Instances of the same class and more
surprising are found in many genera of orchid.

The Frontino _vexillarium_ grows "cooler," has a much larger bloom,
varies in hue from purest white to deepest red, and flowers in May or
June. The most glorious of these things, however, is _O. vex.
superbum_, a plant of the greatest rarity, conspicuous for its b